Tutorial Tuesday - St. Pats Day

Since it's really late, and my husband is shutting lights off on me... I will keep this really short!
I stumbled upon this cute tutorial for a St. Patty's Day shirt.  Her tutorial is great, but I think I have another way.

Here's her completed project:


ADORABLE! And her blog post shows how to do it using the freezer paper stencil and cricut technique that has been all over pinterest and the like.  If you have a cricut and are confident in your skills to do this, excellent! If not, you could easily reproduce this shirt without.

My idea is use felt or scrap fabric to cut out your clover and then use a disappearing fabric pen (in the sewing section for a few few bucks - then the ink will "erase" during the first wash) to hand write your own letters and then fill them in with paint.  This idea is much quicker and while you may not think your handwriting is cute now, your kids will love it when they don't have you anymore.  My grandma's handwritten notes, cards and recipes are some of my most treasured belongings. Happy Creating!

Free Friday

I love winter.  I love snow.  I don't hate the cold.  I do hate the wind that makes you hurt.  But with the extremely mild winter we've had, I have spring fever in the worst way.  I'm ready to see my beautiful flowers and to put in another flower bed! So today I thought it'd be fun to show off my spring fever in some fun ways - free files!



This one is from  Creative Memories - oh how I love them! This download is about half way down - it's from my birthday! :) July 22, 2011.  There are also a BUNCH of other downloads on this site if you don't have spring fever.



These would make a great scrapbook page, bookmark, or easter card.  The file is a PSD file but even if you don't have photoshop, I think you'll still be able to use the file.  If not, I can always convert to an SVG or JPEG (probably) :)



So Stinkin' Cute! Thank you Crayola! There were some other fun free activities from them.  I liked the color, cut out and assemble your own flower.  Very cute as always!



How Simple!? put a full sheet of sticker in the printer, print and cut! yay! Home made spring/easter stickers!


Cutest Subway Art I've seen in a long time!

 Enjoy the files! Happy Think Spring Everyon

Handmade Valentines for the Kids to pass out

I talked awhile back about making Valentine's this year.  And we are finally done.  We used my favorite program ever - photoshop  because we like to work smarter not harder.  And it's a lot easier to control cost. 

I used blank 4x6 cards which were about 1.46 for the entire pack which we used 30 of.  We got the pencils and the heart mazes from the dollar store, although I've seen them online even cheaper still.  But I'm not always known for patience.

Here is what the cards looked like after we printed them out:
(I apologize for the poor picture - 3, 4 & 6 year old children do not want to wait for mom to take weird pictures of their stuff)

I used my Creative Memories Personal Cutter (available from your's truly!) to quickly cut them in half.  They aren't perfect, because apparently I passed on my waiting skills to my kids.... 

Even though they weren't cut perfectly, they still got the job done...

I made half of them to color and half of them ready as is because I anticipated that it wouldn't still be fun to color when you are on your 39th card (we made them for all of the valentine parties she would be a part of) Ever the efficient little worker bee, she decided only to color the hearts, and to make them all green, "so no one got mad" :)

I taped on the maze to those cards because getting it lined up just so was a little tricky. These were also the ones I designed to not need coloring, she just needed to write her name.

I let her tape the pencils on.  (I should warn, this ended up costing me a nearly entire roll of tape!) When I designed the cards I intended to have them all taped on the side where there is a little extra room, but half way through she decided she wanted some variety.  So she taped them on any of the sides.

So for less than 5 dollars (more if you count the tape), and about 35 minutes give or take, we have nearly 60 home made valentines! And she loved the play on the words!

If you want to try make your own, here's a JPEG of the Pencil one.  Enjoy!



Valentine Free Fonts

Since I didn't add any free fonts to My Valentine Freebie List, I decided to make a list of my top 5 free Valentine Fonts.  They are all free to download, however, I think it should be said that some of them ask for a donation/fee for commercial use. So, download away friends - these are to great not to use right away!  


Download above font here



Look at ALL THOSE HEARTS! Download them here!


This one will be going on a scrapbook page soon! Get it!



Ignore the name, scroll toward the bottom of the page, and just click the image you see above.



No tidy way to show off this big font called Heartland. But it is pretty great! You can find it here.

Valentine (mostly free) Fun

Valentine's Day is not far off.  Pinterest is has been bombarded with pretty pictures and stuff. I don't know if love is in the air or not. Blogs everywhere are filled with lists of favorite Valentine froufrou.  If you really know me personally, then you know that I am a compulsive list maker.  So it would only be natural if I too made a list of valentine loves.

Some are quick.  Some are easy. Some are even free.  So here it is:

• A clifford valentine.  Print it out already colored or in black and white to color - these are pretty darn cute!
• A simple valentine word find print out
• Really sweet "rose" bouquet made with Hershey Kisses (It says "not edible" but I'm pretty sure I would!)
• What valentine list wouldn't be complete without a mailbox?

This one is pretty non-traditional, but I think it'd also be adorable in bright pink!

• A Crochet pattern for a heart.  The website also has several reader suggestions for how you could use the heart.  But I think it'd make a cute dishcloth!
• A free E Card for valentine's day! :) There is even one that say's "I freaking love you!" --I've actually said that before! :) You can email these or post them to facebook.  Which is great!

So there you are, my top 5 (Apparently that's all the longer my lists are these days...) favorite 2012 Valentine's Days Freebies! Enjoy, and happy pre valentine's day!